


First Impressions Only Matter When They Get Tattooed On Your Body

by humanities_angstiest



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Attempt at Humor, Eren Is a Little Shit, Gen, Humor, M/M, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, Tattoos, at least I think so, jean is a romantic, someone said this was sweet
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-04
Updated: 2016-08-04
Packaged: 2018-07-29 05:49:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,138
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7672513
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/humanities_angstiest/pseuds/humanities_angstiest
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Soulmate tattoo au for Eren and Jean. Imagine the possibilities.</p><p>Sometimes I like titling my works like I’m a member of Fall Out Boy.</p>
            </blockquote>





	First Impressions Only Matter When They Get Tattooed On Your Body

**Author's Note:**

> Honestly, I’m not really happy with how this turned out but I don’t feel like starting again from scratch and it seems stupid to let it gather dust on my computer, so here is the cliche soulmate tattoo au no one wanted.

Jean was stoked. As the oldest of all his friends, he would be the first to get his soulmate tattoo. Who cared about being able to drive at sixteen or drink at twenty-one? On a person’s eighteenth birthday their soulmate tattoo appeared, the first words their soulmate will say to them written permanently somewhere on their body.

Jean, secret romantic that he was, had been dreaming about this day since he was eleven. Over the years there had been many daydreams of his first encounter with his soulmate. In each one, his soulmate was struck by his dashing good lucks and magnetic personality, his tattoo reflecting this first impression.

As his eighteenth birthday drew closer, he giddily anticipated his tattoo. If it appeared somewhere visible, everyone would see the lovestruck first words of his soulmate and stew in their envy.

“Are you excited Jean? Less than 24 hours now.” Marco set his lunch tray down on the table, swinging his legs over the bench to sit across from his best friend.

“Of course he’s excited. His soulmate tattoo is all he’s been talking about since January,” Connie griped. Sasha reached across the table to steal a grape from Connie’s lunch, poking him in the ribs before sitting back in her seat.

“Can you blame him? Instead of having to suffer through terrible relationships, he just has to wait until he meets the special person who speaks the words of his tattoo. I wonder what your tattoo will say!”

Jean smirked at Sasha, resting his head on his hand and acting calm despite the knot of excitement growing in his stomach.

“It’ll probably say ‘You have beautiful eyes,’ or something else cliché”. It wouldn’t bother Jean to have a generic tattoo however, if every time he looked at his arm he was reminded that his soulmate thought he had beautiful eyes.

“More like ‘Is that your natural hair color?’” Jean threw an apple slice at Connie, who laughed as it bounced harmlessly off his chest.

“It doesn’t matter what it says. Either way, Jean will know his soulmate is out there, waiting to meet him so they can start their happy lives together,” said Marco, ever the optimist.

Jean couldn’t wait.

That night, Jean spent over an hour picking out his outfit for the next day. He never knew when he’d run into his soulmate, but starting tomorrow he’d know who it was when he did. If by happenstance he met them tomorrow, what image did he want to give off? Was dressing like a hipster still considered cool or had it become so mainstream that now the impression it gave was ‘poser’? He decided to play it safe with dark wash jeans and a blue button down, but as Marco pointed out, his appearance wouldn’t matter too greatly to his soulmate.

Jean attempted to stay awake for the moment his tattoo appeared (would he feel it?), but eventually decided his beauty rest came first and the tattoo would still be there in the morning.

As soon as his alarm rang, Jean pounded the button to shut if off before jumping out of bed and approaching his full length mirror. He checked his arms - nothing. Realizing it would be quicker to spot his tattoo if he was naked, Jean stripped out of his pajama bottoms and t-shirt.

He hoped the tattoo wouldn’t be somewhere awkward like his butt cheek, and a quick glance at his rear cleared his worries. When he faced the mirror again, he saw black writing on the inside of his thigh. Jean took a slow breath in, releasing it just as slowly. He had waited years for this day. What would his soulmate think of him, say to him, when they first meet?

Thankful he had superb balance from his Sunday yoga classes, Jean stood on one leg and lifted the other up to his face so he could read his thigh easier.

In blocky black writing, his tattoo read: **The horse speaks**.

Huh?

Jean put on his reading glasses to make sure he read it right, bummed to see he had.

What could that possibly mean? Do they meet at a traveling circus?

Jean felt depressed. Why couldn’t his tattoo say something sweet? The only upside was that the tattoo was easily hide-able under shorts, unless Jean wore his cut off jeans that were just a bit too short to be considered heterosexual.

He distracted his mother with a kiss on the cheek as he ran out the door to catch the bus, but he was unable to avoid his friend’s curious questions about his tattoo at lunch.

“What’s it say, Jean?”

“Yeah, you’ve talked about nothing else for months. It’s only fair you tell us, dude.”

“It’s okay if you want to keep it to yourself. It’s something special between you and your soulmate, after all.”

“Yeah, it…it’s personal. Maybe once I meet them I’ll tell you guys what it says.” Jean really wanted to ask Marco’s opinion on what his tattoo could mean, but was too embarrassed to share.

Months passed by and Jean did his best to forget his unfortunate tattoo. All he could do was wait until he met his soulmate, when the mystery of his tattoo’s meaning would be revealed.

After a string of bad days - tomato sauce splattering on his shirt on Monday, a test he forgot about on Tuesday, and missing the bus on Wednesday - Marco suggested they see a movie. He knew his friend was trying to cheer him up, but Jean’s face was stuck in a permanent scowl.

He didn’t have the friendliest personality on his best day, but after the week he was having, his temperament was worse than normal. Marco was buying popcorn and drinks, leaving Jean to stand alone off to the side in the theater lobby.

A prickling on his neck made him look to the right, where a guy was already staring back at him. Jean guessed the guy was in high school as well, judging by his sweatshirt that read ‘Trost Lacrosse,’ Trost being a high school on the other end of the city.

The guy wasn’t doing anything, just staring expressionlessly at him with those mesmerizing blue-green eyes, too bright to be anything but colored contacts in Jean’s opinion.

Feeling self-conscious to be standing alone at a movie theater, even though his friend was in line for snacks, Jean snapped, “What’re you looking at, asshole?”

The guy smirked, a cruel twist on his lips.

“The horse speaks.”

Marco appeared at his side a second later, prodding him with the popcorn bucket to get his attention. There were many things running through Jean’s mind, notably the realization that the ‘horse’ referred to him, but his anger was quickly replaced by the realization that he had the better tattoo.


End file.
